The announcement by DPS MP Nada Drobnjak about submitting an initiative to the Constitutional Court for the review of the constitutionality of the amendments to the Law on Social and Child Protection caused conflicting opinions among lawyers, activists of the NGO sector and members of the Assembly.
Drobnjak decided to take that step because, as she stated, the provision that mothers with three or more children be given lifetime allowances is discriminatory in several ways. She believes that the adopted changes discriminate against women who have not given birth or have less than three children and men.
Lawyer Aleksandar Đurišić believes that changes to the Law on Social and Child Protection cannot be discriminatory, but that working women with three or more children represent one of the most vulnerable categories.
"Those women usually function without anyone's help and work much more complicated, much harder and with much more effort and commitment," said Đurišić.
He concludes that the goal is to help vulnerable groups not feel threatened and to bring themselves into the ranks of those who are not threatened.
"If the proposers of the law, as well as the competent parliamentary committee and relevant state institutions, had intended to deal with these problems seriously, and not just in a populist way, in anticipation of the upcoming elections, they would first have provided research and analysis of the effects of such measures on both population policy and the economic position of women , and the economic situation in general", said the director of the Safe Women's House, Ljiljana Raičević.
She assessed that a serious state is also thinking about the effect on the economy of giving up the employment of women of working age, whose right to choose is only apparent.
As he says, the state, instead of collecting cheap points, should deal with the analysis of existing laws and their application, so it would remove from them the discriminatory measures that affect women every day, in a much larger number than the competent inspections register.
Raičević claims that this proposal is "blind to many forms of gender discrimination, which directly violates the Constitution, the Law on Gender Equality and signed international conventions.
"It creates divisions among women themselves, which is a proven recipe to prevent weak emancipatory attempts and to re-traditionalize the role of women in society and return it to the shackles of patriarchy, this time with apparently affirmative measures," Raičević believes.
According to SNP MP Aleksandar Damjanović, the changes to the Act are in accordance with the Constitution.
"Certainly, the fact that someone tried to challenge the constitutionality of social benefits in a country that prides itself on the constitutional principle of social justice will remain in the annals... The law is in accordance with the Constitution and the legal system, and in any case it will not be difficult for the Constitutional Court to reject the initiative." , he said.
The president of the Women's Forum and a member of the DNP presidency, Mirjana Jančovska, assessed that the goal of Nada Drobnjak is inhumane, "to relativize the validity of a good law, to then overturn it in the Constitutional Court, because she was instructed to do so, and her task ends there. independent even of the white plague and the process of emigration of the population from Montenegro, which is part of our gloomy reality".
Maja Raičević from the Center for Women's Rights supports the intention of MP Drobnjak because, as she says, she believes that the Law was adopted hastily.
"There was no analysis of the state's financial capabilities to respond to the demands that the law puts before it, nor was there an analysis of the impact on the overall position of women, which is mandatory under the Law on Gender Equality when adopting all new regulations and policies in all areas of life," she assessed.
Rakočević: Because of the children, I work more
Vesna Rakočević, a mother of three children from Podgorica, said that since she had children, she has been working multiple jobs in order to be able to provide them with basic living conditions.
“My husband does not work. I really think that this Law would help women who have three or more children. At least something to come easy to us in life. In other countries, women who want to give birth have all the privileges, only here they are victims, who have to raise and educate children, go to work, work in the house...", she said.
They voted for the reduction of maternity benefits
Ljiljana Raičević said that the state did not take seriously the initiative of more than 7.000 citizens of Montenegro who in 2013 signed a petition against the amendments to the Law on Social and Child Protection, which reduced state benefits for the reimbursement of maternity benefits, and which they ignored and adopted a disputed solution .
"Instead of creating the general confusion that inevitably arises when economic problems are put in the same basket with measures to increase the birth rate, a serious state would, if nothing else, study the population measures that already exist in other countries, and which are already producing results," said the director. Women's safe houses.
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